New Music

Haptadama comes to a close at Olympic Sculpture Park on Saturday night

May 9, 2010

With Haptadama: The Seven Creations of Ancient Persia, Eric Banks unexpectedly challenges audiences to reconsider how they think about opera. It’s not that Banks is dabbling in new forms or means of expression – although he does have a tremendous gift for contemporizing ancient languages and melodies in ways that observe texts, respect original ideas, [...]

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May Day! May Day! part three

May 3, 2010

May Day! May Day! has come and gone. Thanks to everyone who attended. But I’d also like to thank the musicians who made it possible. The whole day a quote from Robert Spano was ringing through my head “there is no ghetto for new music.” By taking Seattle’s vibrant new music scene and putting it [...]

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May Day! May Day! part two

May 1, 2010

May Day is still going at Seattle’s Town Hall. I finished my last two hour set. Highlights for me were Stuart Dempster’s moving tribute to double bassist Matthew Sperry; Byron Au Yong’s Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas; and Michael Lim and Melia Watras’ improvisations on S.O.S. Alas, wifi problems are continuing. Sometimes the network works, other [...]

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May Day! May Day!

May 1, 2010

Technological problems are preventing me from posting from inside Town Hall so I’ve stollen away to the cafe in the lobby for a quick post. We are now more than three hours into the festival and we just heard two sections from Steve Reich’s Tehillim by Julia Tai and friends. Tai and her friends will [...]

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Corigliano Quartet performs at Cornish College

April 8, 2010

Even though half of the Corigliano Quartet calls Seattle home, and another member has family in the city (Amy Sue Barston is the sister of Elisa Barston, principal second violin with the SSO), the group’s performances in the area haven’t been as plentiful as you might expect. To my knowledge, the last one was in [...]

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Quarter notes: video edition

April 6, 2010

Nico Muhly talks about his piece for the upcoming NY Phil CONTACT! concert. Here’s a more formal discussion of his piece

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What’s 400 years between composers?

March 10, 2010

Seattle has struggled to create an identity as a major, American city for as long as I have lived here. Each time, it seemed poised to break out, the provincial mindset, which has long dominated the city’s culture, reasserted itself. For 72 hours last weekend, Seattle’s music and performance finally broke loose, bringning us Heiner [...]

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The Fisher Ensemble “At the Hawk’s Well”

February 28, 2010

By Harlan Glotzer Entering the Chapel at the Good Shepherd Center this evening, I was struck with the calm and focus of a dedicated artistic space. This was largely due to the beautiful ambiance of the stage and sonic arena created by the Fisher Ensemble for the world premiere of the piece At the Hawk’s [...]

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45th Parallel debuts in Portland

January 26, 2010

By Lorin Wilkerson Saturday night, January 16th, marked the inaugural concert of a new Portland chamber music group that goes by the name of 45th Parallel.  Its goal is to make a home for chamber music by talented local musicians, to “bring Portland’s rich chamber music culture out of the living room and onto the [...]

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Review: Paul Taub Celebrates 30 Years of Music-Making in Seattle

November 15, 2009

By: R. M. Campbell One of Seattle’s most eminent musicians, flutist Paul Taub, gave a celebratory concert this weekend at Cornish College of the Art, his longtime local base. The flute is not a traditional major solo instrument but Taub, by virtue of hard work, a lot of talent and a nose for provocative new [...]

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Breakfast with Paul Taub

November 12, 2009

This Saturday, acclaimed local flutist Paul Taub is celebtrating 30 years in Seattle with an anniversary concert at Cornish College.  Seattle audiences know Paul well through his work with the Seattle Chamber Players, his solo flue recitals, and through his work as a Cornish faculty member.  I was lucky to be able to sit down [...]

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Third Angle brings the newest of sounds from China in stellar concert

October 25, 2009

There’s a huge landscape for new music in China, and the Third Angle New Music Ensemble explored a bit of that territory in an exciting concert on Friday evening (October 24) at the Fields Ballroom in the Portland Art Museum. That landscape (both external and internal) is being discovered and given a voice by Chinese [...]

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RIP: Leon Kirchner

September 17, 2009

Leon Kirchner died today.  You can read about Kirchner over at New Music Box.  You can also read a very personal blog post by Jeremy Denk about Kirchner, a composer Denk obviously believed in and someone who the pianist considered a friend.  Denk posted a follow up to his original post this morning.

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Third Angle creates upbeat concert of music by Jennifer Higdon

May 16, 2009

It has got to be a little nerve-wracking to play the music of living composers when they are in the audience, but the stakes are even higher when a two-time Grammy winning composer is sitting in the front row, alert as a robin in spring time. Yet members of the Third Angle New Music Ensemble [...]

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Jennifer Higdon chats about life as a composer

May 13, 2009

The Third Angle New Music Ensemble will play several works by Jennifer Higdon in its upcoming concert this Friday at 7:30 pm at the Old Church in downtown Portland. Higdon’s music has been much in demand by vocal and instrumental ensembles, and she has garnered a couple of Grammys as well. I talked with Higdon [...]

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Composer John Paul talks about writing new music for rediscovered silent film

May 6, 2009

Composer John Paul, who heads the music department at Marylhurst University, has written a score for the silent film “City Girl,” which will be shown at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival. The festival will show 10 films in ten days and ” John Paul’s score will accompany “City Girl” at 7 pm on May 8 [...]

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